Encounters
by Brit-bound
Summary: The Earl of Charlbury's favorite girls have an unexpected meeting with a mysterious visitor, necessitating action by the head of the family. "Taking Care of Business" is the name of Piers' game. He performs admirably ... thanks to his lady.
1. Chapter 1

William Shakespeare gave the world a wonderful original story in "The Taming of the Shrew" and Sally Wainwright provided a delightful "updated" version for the BBC's "Shakespeare ReTold" series. Their work has been the inspiration for many FanFiction features that have been a delight for me to read and a challenge for me to write. I will always be grateful for the excellent groundwork and for the efforts of other FanFiction writers to enlarge the story. In "Encounters," Piers and Kate battle yet again – and love more deeply than ever. Both emotional opportunities are rich for any writer. I hope I have passed on a small treasure in return.

…

He stared across the breakfast table at his wife, her head bent and her dark hair – caught loosely in the back - softly framing her face. She was smiling gently. The fingers of her right hand traced butterfly-light paths over his daughter's plump little legs while the baby patted the skin exposed by the open neck of her mother's gown. A tiny trickle of milk escaped out of the corner of Lexi's mouth as she grinned happily.

The Earl of Charlbury reached for the last bit of bacon left on his son Michael's plate, popped it in his mouth, licked his fingers and then wiped them across his T-shirt.

"You must give cream. She's getting fat as a pig," he observed happily.

"It's all muscle and she'll need every bit of it to keep up with her brothers," Kate said as she captured a petite bare foot and kissed the little pearl-like toes.

This was bliss. If men could make milk, there would be no wars, she was quite certain.

It was worth a hundred of the battles she had fought to build a Westminster schedule around Lexi's nursing needs these past few months. And she was aware her government colleagues had finally come to appreciate the benefits her new-found maternal tranquility afforded them.

Tim, in particular, was touting the virtues of baby-led weaning these days and praying Lexi felt a keen attachment to her mother's breast for many years.

"Can't you hurry her along a little? The boys and I have plans and I need a cuddle before we go. From both of you," Piers said as he came to stand over his women and grin down into his daughter's dark eyes.

Lexi disengaged from her breakfast immediately and reached for her daddy, who settled her upright against his shoulder and quickly brought up a pair of milky burps before allowing her to gum his stubbled jawline. It was a new trick in her endlessly fascinating repertoire and one her brothers had never attempted. They had much preferred tugging on his dark curls or gouging at his green eyes or poking inquisitive fingers in his patrician nose at this stage of babyhood.

Kate adjusted the neck of her gown as he dropped a kiss on her head.

"So what is the plan for today?" she asked. It was their first family holiday outdoors at Hazlington since Lexi's birth and the weather was cooperating beautifully for some great wide-open-spaces adventure.

"We're going into the woods with weapons. I'm teaching your sons how to be earls," he said. "And what about my girls?

"We're going to the church bazaar with charge cards. I'm teaching your daughter how to be the Prime Minister."

"M-m-m-h, yes. Valuable lesson that - spending money without the distress of actually watching it disappear in front of your eyes. Instruction may not be necessary, however. It may well come second nature to your daughter, you know." He couldn't resist goading her.

"Maybe so. But then war seems to be second nature to your sons," she responded. To prove her point, she gestured toward the garden where three pairs of legs and an equal assortment of arms were in an untidy ripping, roiling, roaring heap on the ground.

And it was only 8 a.m.

…

The joy of Hazlington was the freedom the Crick family enjoyed in the Earl's ancestral home. While protection was never far away, it was minimally intrusive because the surroundings were far less congested and far friendlier than in London. Already, most of the security detail could easily identify the villagers as well as those who lived in the surrounding countryside but could be counted on to shop around the green or worship in the small church or take tea or a pint in one of the places of refreshment. Strangers seldom ventured in, but they were ridiculously easy to spot and keep an eye on when they did.

There were no enemies at Hazlington. No threats. No disruptions. It might have existed on a different planet for all the similarities to Downing Street.

And today was a temptation not only because of the beautiful weather but also because the annual church fund raiser was in full swing and the atmosphere was festive.

The mother in Kate could hardly wait to show off the baby who had been born there six months before – the first Crick daughter in generations.

She dressed Lexi in her pink bishop's dress smocked with yellow and green and blue bunnies at the yoke, encased her fat little feet in soft-soled sandals and popped a whimsical lacy sunbonnet on her head that would shield her eyes from the sunlight but still allow her black fringes to peep out around the edges.

Stuffing the miniature dark-eyed beauty in the central portion of her brother's stripped- down former three-seater buggy, Kate donned a baseball cap and sunglasses with her jeans and knee-length knit tunic and headed for the booths and tables clustered around the church yard and spilling over onto the village green.

She was a lifetime separated from one of the most famous seats of power in the world. She was a mom – casual, child-centered, neighbor-greeting, relaxed and happy.

…

A walk that should have required no more than 10 minutes stretched to almost an hour by the time Lady Charlbury had stopped to chat with various neighbors headed to, or returning from, the same outing. Exhausted by the attention and lulled by the relative quiet that prevailed with her brothers out of the immediate vicinity, Lexi was sound asleep by the time mother and daughter arrived at their destination.

Kate made several small strategic purchases, taking special care to fuss over a jar of Mrs. Smallstone's blackberry preserves and snapping up a couple of loaves of Eleanor Whitson's whole wheat bread.

She added an assortment of brightly colored miniature hairbows and three sets of carved mounted calvarymen to her growing stockpile of gifts, picked up some glazed nuts and fudge for the security detail and found the perfect scarf for Piers to drape around his neck come autumn.

Having exerted amazing self-control and limited herself to a half-dozen used paperback bodice-rippers, she headed for a vacant bench near the stall selling refreshment, claimed a cup of tea and a supply of biscuits and settled in for a break from a busy morning's shopping.

Lexi slept on long enough for her mother to sip the entire mug of tea and finish off three biscuits and a first chapter before she began to stir. But when she came awake, it was to announce in no uncertain terms that she expected refreshment of her own.

An expert at lady-like lunching, Kate flipped a light blanket over her shoulder to shield the upper half of Lexi's body, unsnapped the hidden nursing vent in her sweater and let down the cup of her bra with a practiced hand. What might have turned heads in a London park went unremarked upon at Hazlington and Kate picked up her book, brought her free arm up to press against her unoccupied breast and stem the flow of milk there and felt the familiar hormone rush kick in as her daughter happily feasted. The nursing couple even managed to switch sides without attracting undue attention and Kate was able to read enough to realize her "novel" sympathies lay with the dark-haired, green-eyed 17th century Welsh brigand rather than the haughty English duchess who had fallen into his hands quite by accident and was behaving as though he were somehow at fault for inconveniencing her.

The Prime Minister hoped it would not require the entire book for Lady Penelope to begin to receive her comeuppance. She clearly needed to be taken in hand early on so the handsome, dashing, thrice-removed cousin to the Tudors could get on with restoring his family's unfairly tarnished reputation.

She was somewhat reluctantly closing the book and allowing a satiated Lexi to emerge from her blanket-cocoon and greet the world when she caught sight of a group of obvious out-of-towners converging on one of the tables set up just outside the door of the tea room across the way.

Several neighbors drifted closer to Kate and Lexi to comment on the baby's resemblance to her father – and, less often but still plausibly, to her mother - or inquire about the infant's weight or share nursing stories of their own. In such friendly fashion, the Crick women passed a delightful half hour blessed by spring sunshine.

Kate was just stirring herself to collect the day's assorted bundles and store them in the large pockets at the back of the buggy when one of the group of newcomers to the tea shop setting detached herself from the visitors and approached with a friendly smile.

"I couldn't help noticing your beautiful baby," she said while reaching out to stroke Lexi's arm.

Kate's pleasure and pride were tempered by a certain wariness. The approach was a-typical for an English woman, who might have smiled and nodded if mother and daughter had passed near her but would never have initiated such a bold greeting to a stranger.

"She's absolutely perfect. I hope you don't mind, but I could hardly help overhearing some of your neighbors say she's the Prime Minister's daughter. I had to see for myself, of course. And now that I'm closer I can be certain they are correct."

Alarm bells sounded somewhere in Kate's mind and she tightened her grip on Lexi with both hands and looked around for her ever-present safety-net Tom, who had been quietly in the background throughout the day's adventure.

"Oh, don't be concerned, my dear. I can tell I've frightened you, and that was never my intention. I'm quite harmless, actually, but I realize now I should have arranged an introduction through a third party rather than just popping by like this. You must forgive me, but when I realized you actually are our famous Prime Minister, I simply felt I had to see this perfect little lady for myself."

At that moment, Lexi maneuvered herself around in her mother's arms and turned the full force of her gaze on the woman who was reaching for her with both arms.

"And now I know beyond a doubt," the woman said to the baby with something like wonder in her voice, "you are most certainly Petruchio Crick's daughter."

She beamed at Lexi.

"And I am your grandmother."

…

Kate's breath caught in her chest and she would have turned and fled had the bench not pressed against her legs from behind, effectively trapping her between it, the buggy and the woman who continued to hold out her arms as though she expected the baby's mother to simply hand her over.

"Please leave us alone," she managed to say finally.

"But, my dear, I mean you no harm at all. I simply want to hold my granddaughter," the blonde matron said, stepping in even closer and never breaking eye contact with the fascinated baby who was reaching for her dangling earring.

"Get away from us now or I will scream for help. I don't know you. Don't you dare touch my baby."

"There, there, I've startled you, I know. But surely you can see I'm no threat, my dear. After all, we're family."

"You are no family to me or my children. You are no family to my husband, either," Kate gritted out between clenched teeth. Then she turned as best she could from one side to the other and began to scream. "Tom! Tom! Help me! Tom, now!"

Lexi set up a wail as her mother's frantic voice assaulted her ears and the mysterious stranger dropped her arms and began to back away, her cultured voice now reduced to an angry hiss.

"Stop shouting. Are you mad? I've done nothing wrong. Stop it, I say!"

But Kate went on screaming and Lexi went on crying and other shoppers, too shocked to react initially, began forming a tight circle around the tense tableau – a circle Tom broke through within seconds.

The Prime Minister collapsed on the bench as Tom took the woman by the arm and moved her back through the crowd toward the tea shop, while she angrily remonstrated with him and proclaimed her innocence.

Kate hugged Lexi to her, trying unsuccessfully to quiet her daughter's cries and blink away her own tears.

"Hush, Lexi, darling. It's alright. Mummy's here. It's alright," she whispered, but Lexi continued to wail.

The diminutive Prime Minster found herself on her feet again, bouncing the baby on her shoulder and patting her back. "Please, darling. Don't cry. We're going home to Daddy."

Lexi's sobs ceased.

…

Back home again, Kate handed her little one over to Mandy Tanner, Becky's teen-age daughter and occasional Crick-family babysitter. The girl was delighted to hang out at Hazlington when the family was in residence and devote herself to the Earl's loved ones, as had her mother and her grandmother before her – stretching back for generations.

The Prime Minister had not long to pace the width of the Hazlington study in a fine fury over the recent events before Tom knocked on the front door. Having jerked it open, she peered over his shoulder with blazing eyes as though expecting to see the bleached-blonde intruder planning another foray there. But the head of her security detail was quite alone.

"What did you do with her?" Kate demanded.

"Saw her into her car and on her way out of town. I doubt she'll be back to bother you again," Tom said quietly as he stepped inside.

"But I don't want her sent away," Kate raged. "I want her arrested. I want her tried and convicted of – of – threatening our security or attempted kidnapping or being a terrible person or something – anything. You can't just let her go with a warning and a wave. I want her to suffer. Tie her up and beat her and brand her and hang her and then cut off her head and feed it to the lions and then … then …"

"You neglected to pull out her fingernails and break her kneecaps, sweeting," a voice interrupted behind her.

Kate whirled.

"And who has irritated you, my love?" the Earl, himself recently returned from his morning's woodland adventure, inquired of his wife with a raised eyebrow.

"You're supposed to be in the forest with the boys. You sneaked up on me," she accused, but Piers recognized her diversionary tactics and refused to be sidetracked.

"Tom, old man, it seems I must turn to you for information," said Lexi's father, side-stepping his wife and throwing a companionable arm around the body guard's shoulder while ushering him toward the study.

"It's nothing. Just a misunderstanding … And I was joking. Entirely," Kate protested loudly as she followed them.

Piers was the last person she wanted to know about the encounter. She desperately needed time to get her fear and anger under control so she could present the entire episode as though it had no significance for her family. If Piers ever discovered how upsetting the scene had been, she couldn't be sure what he might do. It was one thing for the Prime Minister to mouth useless stress-relieving threats in private to her body guard. It would be quite another for her husband to create a scene that might attract the attention of the media. Or the police.

But of even more concern to Kate, the meeting had the potential to open a whole host of ancient wounds she had tried so hard to bind up.

Damn the woman. Why had Amelia Sadler-Petts Moncreif come back to Hazlington to begin with? And how had she dared approach any member of Piers' family? Did she imagine her reputation was a secret? Or were her conceit and self-centered nature so immense she considered nothing but her own immediate preferences?

While Kate wrung her hands and tried to think of some way to make the story more palatable, Piers succeeded in maneuvering the well-muscled Tom to the most comfortable seat in the room and left no question that he expected him to sit. And to speak.

"A couple of beers might be in order, my love," he grinned at Kate and then winked at Tom. England's Prime Minister folded her arms and glared at him in return, momentarily diverted. "And some cheese and crackers, too, if it's not too much trouble," he added as an afterthought.

"You can bloody well get your own …"

"Why don't you add some sausages to that, too. There's a good girl."

"Why don't you swivel …" Kate began in form reminiscent of her pre-lactation approach to life.

Piers brushed past her then in apparent cheerful ignorance of her emotional state, disengaging his arms from his ratty farm jacket with such typical bumbling that he upset her balance slightly and she stumbled backward. The Earl immediately reached for his wife, swept her off her feet and up into his arms and carried her unceremoniously out of the study and toward the kitchen.

"Back in a moment, Tom," he called over his shoulder while Kate snarled and slapped at his chest and tried to wriggle out of his arms. "Hold on to that explanation. I'll be wanting it over the sausages."

Tom ran both beefy hands over his perspiring face as the Cricks'voices echoed from the back of the house. What luck to be trapped between the desires of the nation's Prime Minister, who clearly did not want her husband to know of his mother's visit, and the naturally curious Earl of Charlbury, who - no doubt - had his own methods for extracting information.

The security chief had a sudden vision of the torture chamber in London's famous tower.

…

"Put me down this instant, you overgrown ninny," Kate raged, all her fear and anger toward the Earl's mother conveniently transferred to his broad shoulders.

Obligingly, Piers deposited his wife on the ancient oak kitchen counter and thrust a box of crackers into her hands.

She hurled it to the floor and snarled in his face. "I am not your servant and I will not be ordered about like …"

"You are my wife and you will behave yourself, Kate, beginning this instant. Or I will know the reason why." He leaned toward her, almost nose to nose, and hemmed her in with palms flat on the counter on either side of her. "And don't you even think of raising your hand to me."

She had been thinking of doing precisely that, but it suddenly seemed unwise. Instead she drew a deep breath and affected a nonchalant attitude and a change of heart.

"Perhaps we might all enjoy a little snack. Let me down, dearest, and I'll fix a tray," she offered with a sweetness dripping insincerity.

The Earl started to back away – the better to scrutinize her intent - but then realized he was leaving himself wide open to a well-aimed kick and, instead, side-stepped his wife's trainer-clad feet.

"I'll be delighted to help you, my sweet Kate. I think we all could profit from some refreshment. Especially poor Tom," Piers said and leaned over to kiss the tip of her nose.

Kate melted against him, pulling him close and burying her face in his neck.

"You smell wonderful," she whispered throatily. "Like a real man – all earthy and sweaty and lovely."

"How very odd," Piers said pulling away from her with a cocked eyebrow. "Because all I smell is a rat."

…

When the story finally all came out – with Tom bleeding portions of it and Kate doing her best to put a plaster on the rest – Piers accepted it with complete equanimity. Satisfied that he had all the relevant details, he suggested a game of cards, which Tom politely declined on the grounds that it was time for him to patrol the estate.

Then, after showing his wife's safety net out the door, the Earl wandered toward the stairs with the excuse that he was tired from a morning spent roaming the woods with three active little boys and needed a nap.

Kate busied herself with tidying up the kitchen and then unpacked the items she had purchased earlier in the day and wheeled the buggy into its corner in the laundry room. It was a while before she realized peace had reigned far longer than was customary, except in the dead of night, in her household.

She found her husband a quarter hour later in the boys' room. He lay in the center of the king-size mattress they had outfitted on the floor so the triplets could pile in comfortably and safely – once their habitual rough housing got under way each evening - together. A jumble of books lay near his feet. Three dozing little boys were curled up – one on each side of their father and one curved around his head. And the family's princess perched on his chest, her knees tucked under her, her lace-clad bottom elevated skyward and her whole slumbering body, cradled by the most beautiful hands Kate had ever seen, moving rhythmically up and down as her daddy breathed in and out in sweet sleep.

Kate recalled the terrible punishments she yearned to see inflicted on Mrs. Moncreif. And she realized the absence of moments like this one in the woman's life were far worse penalties than any judge could ever hand down.


	2. Chapter 2

It was the one place in the world he had eventually given up expecting ever to be. Not that the Earl of Charlbury hadn't dreamed of the possibility nightly for years before he was able to bitterly and finally abandon the hope.

But now, here he was. And it had all been so easy. He had simply knocked on Amelia Moncreif's door and been admitted.

He wondered if the same welcome would have been afforded him when he was a bewildered and heartbroken six-year-old. But madness lay in that direction, so he focused his thoughts on the purpose of his current visit, instead.

Piers Crick moved leisurely around the living room of Mrs. Moncreif, the woman listed on his birth certificate as his mother, casually examining photos of her three younger sons at various stages of their development. There were, of course, no photos of him. His very existence might still be a mystery to his half brothers, for all he knew.

The still-elegant matron who had walked out of her marriage to the 15th Earl of Charlbury more than 30 years before and, in the bargain, walked away from the 16th Earl of Charlbury just before he celebrated his seventh Christmas, watched him warily from her favorite wingback chair near the fireplace.

Her heart was hammering in her throat, and she was unaccustomed to such emotion. She knew she should seize control of the moment, but something had altered the dynamic between her and her first-born son. She suspected it was his wife.

She had not seen Piers face-to-face since he was a gangling, long-haired, punked-up teenager with orange streaks in his curly locks, an oversized hoop earring in one ear and a wide band of liner defining his Charlbury green eyes.

The sight of him splashed across the front page of every newspaper and magazine in the British Isles on his wedding day had been a shock, considering his choice of attire. But the picture before her today created even more distress.

Her son was the image of his father in his prime and every contradictory emotion she had ever experienced related to the late Earl rose up from the depths of her soul and threatened to choke her.

She wondered if he was as volatile as his father. Not that she was fearful. She had learned to handle the Charlbury loss of temper early on. It was the Charlbury loss of fortune she had found impossible to live with.

Piers, for his part, was content to let the silence lengthen. Theoretically, Amelia should have been in the catbird's seat. The home territory was hers. The first-strike initiative had always been hers.

But he knew she was on edge.

Good.

Let her be.

She had kept him on edge for years.

She had apparently thought to extend that advantage over his petite wife and had encountered a formidable snarling lioness - backed up by the might of Her Majesty's security apparatus - protecting her cub instead.

And somewhere in the tangle of emotion that had twisted in his heart and mind for the last 48 hours since that event, he had come to realize that he had the power to disarm Amelia Moncreif. It was power that emanated from Kate.

He turned its force on the woman who had kept him yearning for her love for more years than he cared ever to recall again.

"It must be clear to you now that you are unwelcome at Hazlington," he said calmly. "There was a time when that was not true. There was a time when you were mistress there. But that was long ago and things have changed. You wanted something different. Now you have it. I advise you to be content with what you gained. Because you will never have anything more from Hazlington."

Amelia Moncreif opened her mouth to protest, but her son moved a few steps closer to her chair and continued with an air that conveyed a distinct message: whatever she had to say would now be heard only at the Earl's pleasure.

"I haven't been able to remember, for years, the dress you had on that day," he said calmly. "You must have worn a coat over it – after all, it was Christmas Eve and you would have been cold. So very cold." He smiled down at her grimly and satisfied himself that the shot had hit home directly.

"I can't recall any more how you wore your hair then or if you had jewelry or what kind of scent you favored. I think I knew all of that for a while. I think I went to sleep with an image of you complete in my mind every night. I remember being afraid that if I forgot those things, it would mean I had lost you for good and you would never come back. It took a while for me to realize you were never coming back anyway.

"I do still remember something about you that day, though. I remember that when you left me, you smiled and you blew me a kiss. I'm here today not so much to warn you away from my family. If you haven't gotten that message already, there are no words I can use that will convey the magnitude of trouble you'll bring on yourself if you approach any of us again. Ever. No, Mrs. Moncreif, I'm really here for one far more simple reason. I need to walk away this time. I need to blow you a farewell kiss. I need to smile when I say good-bye. I think you owe me the opportunity, all things considered."

Piers rubbed one long elegant finger against his nose and dropped his eyes for a moment.

Amelia Moncreif could have taken advantage of the opening to fire a salvo of her own, but she found it impossible to speak past the lump in her throat. So she waited.

"I want you to understand something before I go, though. I was there for my daughter's birth, and I felt that new life birth something whole in me. I watch her feed at her mother's breast, and I feel nurtured myself. I wake up every day wondering what my sons will teach me, and I can't get started with the adventure quickly enough. I kiss them all goodnight and watch them drift away to a place I can't go, but where I still hold them in my heart, and I feel such peace. I take their mother in my arms, and I know – a little bit more every day - what love really is.

"And sometimes I think of you," he whispered.

He watched her carefully and saw something like triumph flash through her eyes.

"I think of you … with such pity," he added quietly. "How much you missed. Maybe you tried to find it with my brothers. Were you successful at it with them? Did it work for you? Or are you still looking?"

Her eyes closed briefly, a tear escaped and he had his answer.

He approached her chair, bent over it and put his hand gently below her chin, raising her head until she met his gaze.

"Don't come looking for it in my family, Mrs. Moncreif," he said softly.

When he stood erect again a moment later, the victor's crown was firmly in place on his head. The husband of England's Prime Minister had won the battle, thanks to the overwhelming power … the power of her love.

He smiled at Mrs. Moncreif, raised the fingers of his right hand to his lips and blew her a silent kiss.

And then he walked away.


End file.
